Saturday, October 04, 2008

A Female Vice-President

Pr Peperkorn linked to an article by Mollie Ziegler Hemingway (just can't get used to these young folks' married names ... including my daughters' ... but I'm sure I'll get the married names down pat quicker than the new hymnal ... ah, but that's another topic altogether).

Mollie makes excellent points about the double standard. Evangelicals are "supposed to be" upset about having a female vice-president because of the order of creation, and yet, who got upset about Nancy Pelosi as third-in-line? (Well, besides the people who object to her stance on the issues?) The media is hypocritically pointing out how Sarah Palin should be at home with her children, hoping people like me (who think she should be at home with her children) will be repulsed enough to refuse to vote, or to vote for Obama.

Now, really, how can they live with themselves? They're speaking publicly about how terrible it is that Sarah Palin is "neglecting her children" when THEY are the ones setting up daycare centers in corporate workplaces, and advocating killing children who are "inconvenient," and working for tax policies which force many women to feel that they must contribute to the family's income, and defending no-fault-divorce which has put many women in the position of having to provide for children after a man runs off. The typical woman journalist or politician has no right to question Sarah Palin. Now, I do. But I'm voting for her anyway.

I think that, sometime within the next 60-100 years, we will look back at history, and see this as a turning point in what happens to families. I think the outpouring of conservative support for Palin will make a significant change in how our country sees stay-at-home moms and the importance of committing ourselves to our children's needs (quantity-time, not "quality time"). The liberals have already jettisoned those values, but with Palin's nomination (even if she is not elected) I think the conservatives have put themselves in a position of defending the goodness & rightness of women being in the workplace instead of with their children. How many conservatives have been saying in the last month that it doesn't matter whether it's the mom or the dad staying home with the kids? How many conservatives have been saying in the last month that we women CAN "have it all"? How many conservatives have bought hook, line, and sinker into the liberal agenda for women's rights, and we don't even recognize it because we're crazy about this woman who is the politician most like Reagan we've seen in a long, long time?

Right now, we have a choice between Obama/Biden and McCain/Palin. That's a no-brainer. But someday I fear that a tiny minority of old-fashioned folks will look back and see how McCain's choice of Palin resulted in fallout to stay-at-home moms.